How many times have you stood on the border between two countries?
For me, the answer was never—until my Alaska trip, that is.
These days (at least prior to the Covid-19 pandemic), international travel is so sophisticated and easy that we rarely stop to realize just how wild it really is.
Think about it for a minute: you board a giant tube, and then magically emerge from it in a completely new place a few hours later, having exerted no energy. It’s relatively hassle-free, and the convenience of having all entry requirements handled at the airport makes the actual physical borders between countries seem almost nonexistent.
By flying, you miss the whole experience of crossing a border. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as sometimes the process can be tedious and time-consuming, or just plain disorganized (as I experienced when crossing the land border between Cambodia and Thailand a few years ago). But other times, it’s a memorable event all on its own.
One of the most memorable borders for me was when my family and I were on a land tour through Canada’s Yukon and Alaska. One of our bus stops was at the international border between Canada and the United States, where everyone unloaded to explore the area around the border.
There were ‘Welcome to Yukon’ and ‘Welcome to Alaska’ signs, as well as flags for Canada, the U.S., Alaska, and Yukon. A big pole monument marked the split, saying “International Boundary,” with Canada on one side and the United States on the other. Signs or flags are fairly typical features of any marked border, but there was another feature of this border that was extremely unique.
I hadn’t expected that the border would actually be visible by way of a tree line, but I looked out over the rolling hills in either direction and saw a clear-cut section of forest 20 feet wide stretching as far as the eye could see. Evidently, this was no typical border!
It turns out that the Alaska-Canada border is “one of the great feats of wilderness surveying,” according to Ned Rozell, a science writer with the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The boundary itself is 1,538 miles long and travels through some of North America’s thickest, most rugged wilderness, only intersecting one settlement along the way in Hyder, Alaska.
But the story of this border dates back all the way to 1825, before the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia, and before Canada gained independence from Great Britain. Following the transition in ownership, a boundary dispute arose between the Canadians and Americans, who had different interpretations of the wording describing the boundary line.
This dispute was settled by an international tribunal in 1903, but the need for a proper border distinction had become clear. In an article titled "The Alaska-Canada Boundary," author Fran Pedersen explains why:
With mining activities increasing in interior Canada and Alaska, it became important that the 141st meridian international boundary line be determined and marked to separate the two countries, and in 1906, a Convention was signed by Canada and the U.S. requiring this be done.
According to Pedersen, astronomers, engineers, surveyors, and other workers of the International Boundary Commission from both countries then worked together to complete the enormous task ahead. Aluminum bronze monuments that weighed around 55 pounds and were 2.5 feet tall were placed along the 141st meridian separating Yukon and Alaska, and were then set in concrete with 200 pounds of cement. The surveyors tried to make each marker visible from another marker wherever possible.
Finally, in 1913, "after eight summers of work, surveying and marking of the 141st meridian were completed," Pedersen writes.
In total, around 200 markers were placed, stretching all the way from the Arctic Ocean to the south side of Logan Glacier—and this was only the section separating Alaska and the Yukon!
No matter which way you look at it, this was an incredible feat, and because of that, it's a border crossing I will never forget!